As the Syracuse football team’s offense reflected on its performance in Saturday’s 37-17 win over Buffalo, it seemed everyone wanted to take the blame for the unit’s mistakes – especially for the multitude of dropped passes.

Quarterback Perry Patterson faulted himself for not making accurate throws. Receivers Andre Fontenette and Jared Jones said the receivers were at fault.

But perhaps offensive lineman Matt Tarullo offered the best assessment of all: Everyone has to take some of the blame.

Whatever the cause for the slew of dropped passes, it can’t happen again. On that, all sides agree.

‘We’ve got to get the confidence and concentration back,’ Fontenette said. ‘Against Purdue, we had no drops. I dropped the same pass (against Buffalo) that I caught against Purdue.’

Against the Bulls, the drops – most of which occurred in the first half – didn’t affect the outcome of the game. But that was Buffalo, which won only once last season.

Although leading up to the game Syracuse players said they viewed Buffalo the same as any opponent, several players admitted Monday they couldn’t get away with such a sloppy game against the other opponents on the Orange’s schedule.

Also part of the equation is that SU is attempting to develop two young quarterbacks. Top receivers like Jones and Fontenette dropped passes, perhaps hurting Patterson’s and Fields’ confidence.

As Fontenette admitted, both of Fields’ interceptions this season are the fault of wide receivers. Fontenette blamed himself for Fields’ first pick of the season against Purdue. And Fields’ second pick Saturday was caused by an unnamed receiver running the wrong route.

‘It’s a little lack of focus,’ running back Damien Rhodes said. ‘Guys just get sloppy sometimes.’

If the receivers’ sloppiness continues, it could mean a long season for the Orange. On Saturday, SU’s third drive began with a 10-yard holding penalty on Quinn Ojinnaka. Then on second-and-17, a wide-open Jones dropped a Patterson pass.

And as SU head coach Paul Pasqualoni pointed out, drives like that will never result in points. And games littered with mistakes like that rarely result in victories.Pasqualoni said that in practice, each throw in every drill is graded by a manager, and Pasqualoni receives a report on each throw at night. He said every throw goes down as complete, incomplete, accurate or inaccurate. The receiver who catches it is also noted.

‘We coach the quarterbacks on throwing the ball accurately,’ Pasqualoni said. ‘Here’s what we tell the receivers: ‘You have got to be able to make a difficult catch.”

Fontenette believes that the problem will correct itself this week in SU’s home opener against Cincinnati. He said after the Buffalo game, the wide receivers huddled in the locker room and discussed the need to improve.

It was suggested that playing with two different quarterbacks may be causing some of the receivers’ problems, but Fontenette, Jones and Rhodes all denied that. Fontenette said that Patterson has a stronger arm than Fields, but in games it doesn’t make much of a difference.

The wide-outs all said they’d continue to work through the problem in practice this week. But ultimately, they said, it’s going to come down to better concentration in the games.

‘The whole team should pick up the slack,’ Fontenette said. ‘I dropped a ball, Jared dropped a ball, Breyone dropped a ball, Greg dropped a ball. Everyone’s dropping balls.

‘That was only that one game. All I know is I could be like Randy Moss next week. So hopefully we can pick it up as an offensive unit and especially the receivers.’

Published on September 13, 2004 at 12:00 pm